Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Gw.run VS Headscale

Compare Gw.run VS Headscale and see what are their differences

Gw.run logo Gw.run

Simple and secure access to internal web apps

Headscale logo Headscale

An open source, self-hosted implementation of the Tailscale control server
  • Gw.run Landing page
    Landing page //
    2020-11-14
  • Headscale Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-20

Gw.run features and specs

No features have been listed yet.

Headscale features and specs

  • Open Source
    Headscale is open-source, meaning it is free to use, modify, and distribute. This promotes transparency and encourages community collaboration.
  • Tailscale Compatibility
    Headscale is designed to be compatible with the Tailscale client, allowing users to leverage their existing Tailscale configurations in an alternative backend.
  • Self-Hosted
    Headscale allows users to self-host their own coordination server, providing greater control over their network and data privacy.
  • Community Support
    Being an open-source project, Headscale benefits from community-driven support and contributions, which may lead to rapid feature development and issue resolution.
  • Scalability
    Users can scale their deployments according to their needs without being restricted by commercial licensing models.

Possible disadvantages of Headscale

  • Technical Expertise Required
    Implementing and maintaining a self-hosted solution like Headscale requires a certain level of technical knowledge and expertise, potentially limiting its accessibility to less technical users.
  • Limited Official Support
    Being a community-driven project, Headscale may not have the same level of official support or comprehensive documentation as some commercial alternatives.
  • Configuration Complexity
    Configuring and managing a self-hosted Headscale server can be more complex compared to using managed solutions like Tailscale, potentially posing a challenge for some users.
  • Feature Parity
    While Headscale aims to be compatible with Tailscale, there may be some features or updates that are not immediately available or fully supported.
  • Development Reliance
    As an independent project, Headscale's development relies heavily on community contributions, which can affect the speed of updates or new feature integrations.

Gw.run videos

No Gw.run videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

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Headscale videos

Testing out headscale locally for homelab setup

More videos:

  • Review - Tutorial: Using Tailscale Overlay Network VPN with the Self Hosted Headscale Controller

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Gw.run and Headscale)
Localhost Tools
36 36%
64% 64
VPN
0 0%
100% 100
Testing
100 100%
0% 0
Cloud VPN
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using Gw.run and Headscale. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Headscale seems to be a lot more popular than Gw.run. While we know about 46 links to Headscale, we've tracked only 1 mention of Gw.run. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Gw.run mentions (1)

Headscale mentions (46)

  • Setting up a home VPN server with WireGuard
    You can use headscale [1] (open source) as the mothership, and all the published clients (AFAIK) support pointing them to an alternative mothership. I set it up, and it worked, but regular Tailscale works so well out-of-the-box that I just used that instead of maintaining headscale. [1] https://github.com/juanfont/headscale. - Source: Hacker News / 25 days ago
  • Set up: VPN - Part 1
    Root@hz-headscale-tmp-1:~# export HEADSCALE_VERSION="0.23.0" \ && export HEADSCALE_ARCH="arm64" \ && wget --output-document=headscale.deb "https://github.com/juanfont/headscale/releases/download/v${HEADSCALE_VERSION}/headscale_${HEADSCALE_VERSION}_linux_${HEADSCALE_ARCH}.deb" <...redacted for brevity..> 2024-09-28 12:24:54 (189 MB/s) - โ€˜headscale.debโ€™ saved [17022910/17022910]. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • The New Internet
    > I still have to rely on a landlord. This is a very good point. Counterpoint is self-hosting Headscale which I mentioned in another comment here: https://github.com/juanfont/headscale Works with native Tailscale clients with a few config changes. I use it myself. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • SSH has become our universal (Unix) external access protocol
    Tailscale is just a commercial service that builds upon wireguard. It automatically generates certificates for each of your devices, ensures they're rotated and up to date, automatically configures routing and DNS between your devices and offers some additional functionality. Tailscale has open source clients but a proprietary server to do this, but you can use the open source alternative headscale instead: - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • List of ngrok/Cloudflare Tunnel alternatives and other tunneling software and services. Focus on self-hosting.
    Headscale - Open source implementation of Tailscale control server. Can be used with Tailscale's official open source client. Written in Go. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Gw.run and Headscale, you can also consider the following products

Pagekite - Bring your localhost servers on-line.

TailScale - Private networks made easy Connect all your devices using WireGuard, without the hassle. Tailscale makes it as easy as installing an app and signing in.

Raspberry Anywhere - The software provides a simple way teamviewer-like to access your raspberry board anywhere you are.

NetBird - Connect your devices into a single secure private WireGuardยฎ-based mesh network with SSO/MFA and manage access with just a few clicks.

Packetriot - Serve Apps, Connect Software, Access Devices.

Netmaker - Netmaker automates mesh VPN's and software-defined networks using WireGuard.